1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lighting device and an image capturing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Mobile terminals, such as cellular phones and smartphones, having camera functions have been widely distributed (e.g., refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2012-124582). There are needs to perform scanning operation that images desired media such as books, magazines, and documents and acquires image data using mobile imaging units such as the camera functions of the mobile terminals. Depending on the types of imaging units, lightings included in the imaging units fail to provide a sufficient amount of light to a medium serving as a reading target in some cases. In such cases, imaging may be performed by substituting desk lights for the lightings, for example.
To improve the quality of scanned images in scanning operation, uniform luminance is preferably achieved on the whole of a photographing area. The use of a separate lighting device such as a desk light as a substitute for the imaging unit makes it difficult to uniformly irradiate the whole of the photographing area with light in some cases because it is difficult to uniquely fix the positional relation between the imaging unit and the lighting device. The conventional techniques thus have room for improvement to simply and reliably perform the scanning operation by the mobile imaging units.